Beyond Meat's Burger and Sausage are in high-demand and now available through Sysco, Whole Foods, and TGI Fridays.

Ethan Brown grew up on a farm. It was this childhood that led him to believe that there had to be a different way to create delicious meats. Using science (and a little time) Brown developed a plant protein burger that has been lauded for its incredible performance as an imitation beef burger. Reviews illustrate nothing less than pure disbelief in tasting the “bleeding” burger.

Plant-based protein has morphed into so much more than a trend, it's a movement that is boosting the massive growth of the Vegan market.

According to our Foodable Labs data, 78.4% of the top foodie influencers that we have indexed mentioned vegan menus, which was a 309% increase from 2016 to 2017. Also, concepts in the health halo sector have increased their vegan menu offerings by 211% in 2017.

According to Nestlé, the plant-based food market is expected to reach $5.2 billion worldwide by 2020.

While veggie burger companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger continue to gain momentum in the market, plant-based snacks are also on the rise.

Plant-based burgers aren't only attractive to vegans and vegetarians either. There's a reason they look very similar to a meat burger patty.

"Key consumers will be the so-called flexitarians, people who want to reduce meat consumption in their daily eating habits, but don’t want to miss the texture by using meat analog," said Florian Bark, product manager at Hydrosol to "FoodIngredientsFirst."

Carmel Hagan, Founder of Supernatural New York City explains how once trendy lifestyle changes like organic, plant-based, and vegan are now being adopted by larger shares of the market.

“The idea that we need to be taking care of ourselves through food is becoming more and more mainstream and that’s something that I think, at a baseline, is probably the number one thing that most people can do in their lives to have autonomy over their health,” she says.

According to a study published in the journal Nature, 90% of all large predatory fish (like tuna) are already gone, and the rate of fishing isn't slowing down.

One of only 60 Certified Master Chefs in the U.S., Corwell realized at this moment that “the oceans cofoodble puld never keep up” and thus, Ocean Hugger Foods was born.

Ocean Hugger Foods is, at its base, a plant-based meat and seafood alternatives company. But according to FoodNavigator-USA, what sets this company apart is that rather than using textured soy, pea or wheat protein with oils, gums, starches, and flavors, Ocean Hugger Foods begins with vegetables and keeps their ingredient lists short and simple.

At 400 of the White Castle locations, spread across 12 states– the brand will be offering a burger for vegetarians. However, for those on a health kick, this is not exactly a healthy option. With three different sauces– honey mustard, ranch, and sweet Thai, the burger is between 150-270 calories. It can actually have more calories their regular beef sliders. The veggie burger was well received when it was tested in New York and New Jersey last summer, so it is time for it to be available at more stores.

White Castle is just one of the many restaurants catering to vegetarian customers. There is a change.org petition with 107,00 supporters for McDonald's to offer a veggie burger. This just proves that there is the market for this demographic. This is spreading in all restaurant segments, especially in fine dining. So when will more brands follow suit and appeal to this consumers? Read More

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Our Foodable Top 25 restaurant rankings are not hand-selected or chosen by an editor. These lists are based off of unstructured data from Foodable Labs, which tracks over 171K restaurants and brands, and calculates data based on the mass social audience across multiple markets and countries. The Foodable Top 25 drills down into the local-social audience, or geo-located social actions, in each respective city or market we cover. We seek the real social impact of what people think about the experience of your restaurant at the local level.